10 Nov 2018

Taliban join Moscow peace talks on Afghanistan

Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

The 19th Century British politician, Lord Palmerston was of the view that:  “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Henry Kissinger rephrased it: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
This applies to Russia which hosted the Taliban for peace talks in Moscow attended by Afghanistan, India, Iran, China, Pakistan and five former Soviet republics in Central Asia with the US has observer.
Tellingly, the Taliban is banned from operating in Russia as it is classified as a “terrorist organization.”
The Friday talks were the second meeting of the Moscow-format consultations at the level of deputy foreign ministers and special envoys.
Neither the US nor the Afghan government wants Russia to lead such an initiative, known as the “Moscow Format”. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who pressed Russia to cancel a similar meeting in September, sent four senior members of his nation’s High Peace Council.
Observers do not expect quick results from the Moscow talks but the fact that the Taliban are in the same room as Afghan delegates, in Russia, with the US also in attendance is viewed as significant. It was also seen a triumph for Russian diplomacy.
Russia has challenged the U.S. by hosting the Taliban at a Moscow peace conference in the latest source of friction between the two former Cold War foes, Blumberg said adding:
“While the Moscow meeting isn’t likely to yield concrete results, Russia’s intervention is taking place as President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up diplomatic activity, twice sending officials to meet with the Taliban in recent months and appointing a veteran envoy to advice on Afghan peace. The Taliban have said they are ready to talk to the U.S. to end the war, but not with the Afghan government they deem illegitimate.”
The U.S. sent an observer from its Moscow embassy to the meeting after it refused to attend the September talks, saying they wouldn’t help efforts to end the conflict.
The Russian foreign ministry said earlier that invitations to attend the event had been sent to participating countries – Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the United States.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Addressing participants at the start of the conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the meeting is meant to seek paths to national reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Russia hopes “through joint efforts to open a new page in the history of Afghanistan.” He said that the participation of both Afghan leaders and the Taliban was an “important contribution” aimed at creating “favorable conditions for the start of direct talks”.
“I am counting on you holding a serious and constructive conversation that will justify the hopes of the Afghan people,” Lavrov said before the talks continued behind closed doors.
He emphasized that Daesh terrorists are being supported by “external sponsors” which are trying to “turn Afghanistan into a stronghold of international terrorism in central Asia.”
Lavrov said that “geopolitical games” are unacceptable in order not to make Afghanistan a “rivalry field between foreign players.”
The Afghan and Taliban delegations were divided at the roundtable only by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, presiding over the meeting on behalf of the host country.
Taliban reiterate their known stance
The Taliban delegation was headed by Deputy Chairman of High Peace Council, Hajji Din Mohammad and included Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanakzai, head of the Taliban’s political council in Qatar.
Sher Stanikzai reiterated that the Taliban does not see the current government in Kabul as legitimate.
“This government does not represent the people of Afghanistan, so we reject direct contact with them before the problem with the U.S. is solved. Therefore, we will talk with the Americans, especially about the withdrawal of troops,” he said adding:
“We met with the American side at the negotiating table and asked them to leave Afghanistan. But, of course, so far these negotiations are at a very early stage, we haven’t reached an agreement yet.”
RIA quoted Muhammad Sohail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban’s political office, as saying that before starting talks with the Kabul government, “the issue of the presence of external forces” needed to be addressed.
Shaheen also denied accusations by the U.S. military that Russia has supplied weapons to the Taliban, echoing a similar denial by Moscow.
This was the first time that a delegation of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, took part in an event of this kind.
Kabul regime’s control of Afghanistan slipped in recent months
Moscow peace talks were held amid reports that the pro-US Kabul regime is losing territory to the Taliban in recent months.
Kabul’s control of Afghanistan slipped in recent months as local security forces suffered record-level casualties while making minimal or no progress against the Taliban, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The New York Times reported on September 8, 2018, seventeen years into the war in Afghanistan, American officials routinely issue inflated assessments of progress that contradict what is actually happening there.
In an article titled – How the U.S. government misleads the public on Afghanistan – the paper said the U.S. government says that the Taliban controls  44% districts while the military analysts say that the Taliban controls 61% of districts of Afghanistan.
“More than 2,200 Americans have been killed in the Afghan conflict, and the United States has spent more than $840 billion fighting the Taliban insurgency and paying for relief and reconstruction. The war has become more expensive, in current dollars, than the Marshall Plan, which helped to rebuild Europe after World War II. That investment has created intense pressure for Americans to show the Taliban are losing and the country is improving,”  the New York Times said adding:
Since 2017, the Taliban have held more Afghan territory than at any time since the American invasion. In just one week last month, the insurgents killed 200 Afghan police officers and soldiers, overrunning two major Afghan bases and the city of Ghazni.
It may be recalled that powerful police chief General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in a brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting last month in Kandahar.
The meeting was also attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. He escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq.
At least 8,050 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first nine months of 2018, almost half of them targeted by suicide bomb attacks and other improvised devices that may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said last month.
US ‘war on terror’ killed over half million people: Study
Meanwhile, a US study released on Friday said the so-called US “war on terrorism” has killed about half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan during its 17-years, that was launched after the 9/11 attack in 2001.
The report by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs shows that US-led “war on terrorism” is showing a 22 percent increase in deaths in the past two years.
The report put the death toll at between 480,000 and 507,000 people, but said the actual number is likely higher.
The death toll includes US and allied troops, civilians, local military and police forces, as well as militants, who have died from war violence.
The report said the number of indirect deaths was several times larger than deaths caused by direct war violence, bringing the total death count to well over 1 million people.
It says, fatalities in Afghanistan, as of October 2018, stood at about 147,000 people, including Afghan security forces, civilians and opposition fighters. The figure also included the deaths of 6,334 American soldiers and contractors and 1,100 allied troops.
The report said that war-related violence had killed 65,000 people in Pakistan, including 90 American contractors, nearly 9,000 local security personnel and more than 23,000 civilians. The rest of the casualties were trouble makers.
The rest of the deaths, between 268,000 and 295,000, occurred in Iraq, where the US-led military intervention began in 2003.

IBM’s purchase of Red Hat highlights growing power of technology giants

Mike Ingram

Red Hat and IBM officials announced a definitive agreement on October 28, under which IBM will acquire the open source enterprise Linux company for a cash value of $34 billion. IBM is paying $190 per share for Red Hat stock, a 63 percent premium to its closing price of $116.68 on the previous Friday. It is the largest acquisition by IBM in its 107-year history.
The acquisition is the latest case of giant corporations swallowing up previously independent open source companies and the community of developers around them as they grow ever larger and more powerful. Nowhere is this more prevalent than among companies competing in the so-called public cloud market, in which IBM trails behind Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
In the 10 years from 2007 to 2017, the number of Microsoft employees grew from 79,000 to 124,000. Google had 16,805 in 2007 compared to 57,000 in 2017. The number of employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS) is not available, but the total number of employees at Amazon grew from 17,000 in 2007 to 566,000 in 2017. IBM, the dominant tech company for much of the 20th century saw a slight reduction from 386,000 to 366,000 in wholly owned subsidiaries for the same period.
IBM hopes that the acquisition of Red Hat will give it a competitive edge in the so-called hybrid cloud, which combines public cloud offerings with private clouds in data centers run by a company. In a press release, Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer, said, “The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market.” Rometty claimed that “IBM will become the world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.”
Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, said, “Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions, and I’m incredibly proud of the role Red Hat has played in making that a reality in the enterprise.”
IBM has had its own close relationship with open source software over the past 20 years, recognizing it as a superior development model to those of proprietary systems. With the open source model, IBM gains access to thousands of talented developers globally who would not necessarily work for the company.
Even Microsoft, whose former CEO Steve Balmer described open source as “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches” and “communism,” has in recent years adopted the open source model for a number of projects. Sixty percent of instances running in Microsoft’s Azure cloud are Linux based. Last month Microsoft completed its acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion. The open source code repository and development platform has over 31 million users and hosts more than 96 million repositories from 2.1 million organizations.
Red Hat was founded in 1993 by Bob Young and Marc Ewing. Young ran a catalog service that distributed software while Ewing was developing his own distribution of the open source GNU/Linux operating system which he called Red Hat Linux. The distribution bundled together various application and utilities developed by the Free Software Foundation led by Richard Stallman and the Linux kernel developed by Linux Torvalds. Both the GNU and Linux were released as open source software that could be used by anyone free of charge. Most importantly, the GNU General Public License requires that the human readable source code be made available and gives users the right to modify that code. This was in stark contrast to the proprietary licenses of companies such as Microsoft, Apple and IBM.
Red Hat became the first commercial Linux distribution with a revenue model of distributing the software for free and charging a subscription service for support, updates and professional services. It has maintained a close relationship with the open source developer community and contributed to numerous projects.
Today Red Hat is a significant corporation in its own right, with over 12,000 employees worldwide. Utilizing the code developed by thousands of volunteer programmers, Red Hat quickly established itself as the main distributor of Linux software to enterprise companies. In August 1999, Red Hat went public, achieving the eighth-biggest first-day gain in the history of Wall Street. In 2000 the company opened Red Hat India and began a series of acquisitions, most recently buying the Linux Container distribution, CoreOS, for $250,000,000 in January this year.
A particular target of IBM’s cloud strategy is JEDI, the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project of the Department of Defense. The project is intended to modernize and consolidate the defense department’s IT systems into an enterprise-level commercial cloud. IBM has issued a protest against the JEDI solicitation, stating, “Throughout the year-long JEDI saga, countless concerns have been raised that this solicitation is aimed at a specific vendor. At no point have steps been taken to alleviate those concerns.”
IBM are complaining specifically about a requirement that bidders meet the Defense Information Systems Agency Impact Level 6 security capabilities to handle secret-level military information. Two senior Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, Reps. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) have called for the Pentagon’s internal watchdog to open an investigation into the cloud procurement, raising the same concerns in an October 23 letter to Glenn A. Fine, the acting inspector general at the Department of Defense. At the time the proposal was announced, only AWS met this requirement. Microsoft announced last month that it will soon meet the requirement.
Google withdrew from the JEDI bid last month following protests from employees. Microsoft went ahead with the bid despite opposition from workers. Nextgov reports that CEO Satya Nadella appeared at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, October 10. Nadella reportedly said Microsoft has a four-decades-old partnership with the Defense Department and added that the US “armed forces have a fundamental grounding on what it means to deploy any technology or practice which is ethically used.”
Amazon is also going ahead with its bid and criticized Google’s decision to pull out. Speaking at the WIRED25 summit on October 15, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said, “One of the jobs of a senior leadership team is to make the right decision even when [it] is unpopular.” He added, “If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the DOD, then this country is going to be in trouble.”
With its contribution to open source, Red Hat has maintained a certain respect among developers. But part of the attraction to IBM is the company’s close relationship with the US military. The headline of a 2012 blog post boasts of “Red Hat’s Decade of Collaboration with Government and Open Source Community.”
The authors cite a 2003 study that presented DOD-wide guidance on open source software, “which implicitly permitted its acquisition, development, and use.”
The blog post states that at this time Red Hat released the first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and that, “The Army deployed Red Hat’s operating system in its Blue Force Tracker system, which lived in jeeps and tanks on the battlefield.” It goes on to cite Major General Nicholas Justice, “the man responsible for Blue Force Tracker,” saying later: “When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.”
Retired general Hugh Shelton joined the Board of Directors of Red Hat Corporation in April 2003 and was elected that board’s chairman in 2010. Shelton served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001.
A June 26 article in the Herald Sun states: “Red Hat leaders have been talking to defense officials about its JEDI cloud-services contract and think the company is ‘extremely well-positioned’ to supply the project’s back-end workings, Red Hat Chief Financial Office Eric Shander said in a recent interview.”
IBM is pushing for the DOD to adopt a hybrid cloud approach, utilizing multiple providers rather than a single vendor. In acquiring Red Hat they obtain control of the operating system that will run on whatever cloud infrastructure is ultimately selected, together with orchestration tools that make cloud deployments easier. If they can’t get the whole $10 billion JEDI cake, they at least have a possibility of a slice, together with more lucrative contracts down the road.

In another anti-democratic act, Sri Lankan president dissolves parliament

K. Ratnayake 

Yesterday Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena blatantly violated the country’s constitution and dissolved parliament almost two years before its term officially ends. According to the gazette notification issued last night, new elections will be held on January 5 and the new parliament convened on January 17.
Sirisena’s anti-democratic actions came just two weeks after he sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former President Mahinda Rajapakse to replace him. Sirisena then prorogued the parliament for three weeks until November 16, later changing the date to November 14 following domestic and international criticism. The prorogation was a crude manoeuvre to give Rajapakse time to secure a governing majority in the 225-member parliament.
Sirisena’s dissolution of the parliament yesterday was announced a few hours after Rajapakse declared that he was still eight MPs short of a majority.
Only a handful of people, including Rajapakse, appeared to have known about Sirisena’s decision. Just prior to the announcement, Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa, secretary of Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), told the media that there would be no dissolution of the parliament.
Sirisena appointed at least seven more minsters to the cabinet yesterday and said the Sirisena-Rajapakse led regime would function as a so-called “care-taker government” until after the January elections. Sri Lankan governments are notorious for using the state machinery and its resources to subvert elections.
Significantly, Sirisena has taken a series of measures to strengthen his political power over the past three weeks. Yesterday he took control of the government printing department using his position as Sri Lankan defence minister, having recently taken over the law-and-order and media ministries. He currently holds 18 ministerial positions.
In April 2015, four months after he became president, Sirisena introduced a 19th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution. It was hailed by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, along with academics and the pseudo-left, as a move towards the abolition of the autocratic executive presidential system and a victory for democracy.
The 19th amendment not only took away the president’s power to sack a prime minister if he commanded a parliamentary majority, but also barred any dissolution of the parliament for at least four and half years.
Sirisena has now violated both these clauses and, using vague legal interpretations, is attempting to re-establish the president’s autocratic powers. These hated executive powers will not just be unleashed against his political opponents but directed, above all, against working people fighting to defend their democratic and social rights.
Sirisena’s dissolution of parliament is part of the intensifying conflict between the Wickremesinghe-led UNP, on the one hand, and the president’s new alliance with Rajapakse in the now “united” Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), on the other.
Wickremesinghe has refused to vacate Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence, and is directing the UNP’s campaign to regain government. Claiming to have the backing of a majority of MPs, the party is demanding the immediate reconvening of the parliament.
Following yesterday’s announcement, UNP leaders said the president had no power to dissolve the parliament and that they would seek “legal redress.” This means the UNP will call on the Supreme Court to annul Sirisena’s gazette notification.
Former Minister for Health and Indigenous Medicine Rajitha Senaratne told media at Temple Trees yesterday that the UNP will intensify its campaign against president’s “illegal action” and continue the fight for democracy. He did not elaborate. The UNP had previously announced a major rally in Colombo on Monday.
The “democratic” posturing of the Wickremesinghe and Sirisena-Rajapakse camps is completely bogus. Successive UNP and SLFP governments that have ruled Sri Lanka in the seven decades since formal independence in 1948 have systematically suppressed the democratic and social rights of all working people, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim alike.
In November 2014, Sirisena defected from the then Rajapakse government to contest the presidential election and in 2015 conspired to form government with Wickremesinghe. Sirisena and Wickremesinghe promised “good governance” blaming Rajapakse for nepotism, violating democratic rights and attacking the living conditions of working people. These demagogic utterances were to exploit the mass opposition of workers and poor to Rajapakse’s decade-long autocratic rule from 2005 to 2015.
The ousting of Rajapakse, which Sirisena and Wickremesinghe were directly involved, was a conspiracy orchestrated by the US. Washington had supported Rajapakse’s renewed war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But it wanted Rajapakse’s relations with Beijing scuttled and Sri Lanka brought into line with US confrontational moves against China.
The conflict between the Sirisena-led SLFP faction and Wickremesinghe’s UNP did not come out of blue. After four years the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime is deeply discredited among workers and the poor.
This year has been marked by increasing struggles of workers, rural poor and students against the government’s IMF-dictated austerity measures and attacks on democratic and social rights.
The US and other major powers are siding with Wickremesinghe and the UNP’s demands for the reconvening of parliament. Washington is particularly concerned that the political and military relations it has cultivated over the past four years with Colombo will be affected and has repeatedly issued statements in this regard.
Addressing an SLFP rally last Monday, Rajapakse, in a clear signal to the US, declared that any government under his control would be willing to “work with the west and east, north and south.”
Sirisena’s dissolution of parliament is yet another indication of the degenerated state of parliamentary democracy in Sri Lanka, which is mired in deep economic crisis and moving towards dictatorial forms of rule.
Under the pretext of defending parliamentary democracy, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have sided with the UNP. Academics and pseudo-left formations, such as Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), are also supporting Wickremesinghe. These parties previously backed the US-orchestrated operation that established the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime in 2015.
The working class must reject all factions of the Sri Lankan capitalist class and their opportunist backers. It must organise independently of all these political formations and rally the poor and oppressed to fight for workers’ and peasants’ government based on a socialist and internationalist program.

US multinationals dodge $180 billion in taxes on foreign profits per year

Barry Grey

US multinational corporations are plundering the populations of the United States and the world to the tune of trillions of dollars by driving down and evading taxes on profits booked overseas. This is the conclusion that emerges from a recent study by University of California at Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman and British economist Thomas Wright.
Their paper, titled “The Exorbitant Tax Privilege,” points to the use of US military violence to drive down taxes on American oil multinationals by oil-producing states and a massive expansion of non-oil US firms booking their overseas profits in tax haven countries to generate huge tax savings and increased profits. The statistics the authors provide translate into $180 billion a year in tax savings on US multinationals' overseas operations.
This is money diverted from government revenues in the US and around the world and funneled into the bank accounts and stock portfolios of the global financial oligarchy. In what amounts to an international extortion racket and swindling operation, the US government and both big business parties function as the enforcers of the American corporate elite.
Zucman and Wright note that oil-producing states in the Middle East and elsewhere slashed their tax rates on US oil companies from an average of 70 percent between 1966 and 1990 to an average of 45 percent following the first US-led Gulf War in 1990-1991.
They write: “The foreign tax rates of US oil multinationals fell significantly after the first Gulf War, during which the United States (and a number of other countries with significant investments in oil) intervened to protect Kuwait, a major oil producer.
“Although it is not possible to know for sure what caused this decline, a possible interpretation of the fall in the taxes collected by oil-producing countries… is that they reflect a return on military protection granted by the United States to oil-producing States.”
This is diplomatic language to suggest that the United States used its destruction of Iraq through military violence and deadly sanctions to extort foreign governments to lower their tax rates on American multinationals. To put it more bluntly, the super-profits obtained by ExxonMobil and other mega-monopolies are based in significant part on the blood and bones of millions of men, women and children killed and injured in Iraq, Libya and other Middle Eastern oil-producing countries, as well as tens of thousands of US soldiers.
Non-oil US multinationals have effected a dramatic reduction in taxes paid on overseas investments primarily by accelerating the shift of profit bookings to tax haven countries. Zucman and Wright report that American multinationals’ profits booked in offshore tax havens increased from 20 percent of total US overseas profits in the first half of the1990s to 50 percent today.
The write: “The effective foreign tax rate of US multinationals in sectors other than oil has collapsed since the mid-1990s. While part of this decline is due to the fall of corporate tax rates abroad, by our estimates almost half of it owes to the rise of profit shifting to tax havens.” These havens include countries such as Ireland, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Bermuda and Caribbean tax havens.
The authors note that US multinationals face effective corporate tax rates in non-haven countries of 27 percent as compared to 7 percent in haven countries. Since the late 1990s, the effective overseas tax rate for US non-oil multinationals has fallen by nearly half, from about 35 percent to 20 percent.
The sharp increase in the shift of overseas profit bookings to tax haven countries began with the removal in 1996 of US Treasury restrictions on tax avoidance by such means. The fact that the change took place under the Democratic Bill Clinton administration underscores the bipartisan character of the systematic reworking of tax laws to effect an ever-greater transfer of wealth from the working class to the financial elite.
Zucman and Wright point out that US multinationals use tax havens far more than multinationals based in other countries. They estimate that half of all global profits booked in tax havens are shifted by US multinationals. The practice is considerably less widespread in other major economies that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where anti-tax avoidance laws remain in place. About 25 percent of profits from tax havens go to European Union countries, 10 percent to the rest of the OECD, and 15 percent to developing countries.
The $1.5 trillion tax cut signed into law last December by President Trump, the benefits of which go overwhelmingly to corporations and the rich, provides additional windfalls for US multinationals that have parked trillions of dollars in profits in foreign tax havens to evade US taxes. Besides cutting the legal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent (the real, or “effective,” rate is much lower), the law allows companies such as Apple and Google to repatriate their overseas profits at a discounted tax rate of 8 percent to 15 percent, depending on the nature of the assets.
That law has already sharply reduced the amount of taxes being collected by the federal government from major corporations, leaving their rich shareholders wealthier and the government deeper in debt. Just between January and June of this year, government revenues from corporate taxes dropped by almost $50 billion from the previous year, a decline of one-third.
The cynical claim that corporations would use their tax savings to create more decent-paying jobs has already been exposed by record rates of corporate stock buy-backs and dividend increases. US big business is using its tax boondoggle to reward the bankers, big investors and CEOs with billions in additional wealth—to buy more and bigger yachts, private islands and personal jets—while squandering more resources produced by the labor of the working class on parasitic financial operations.
The estimated $180 billion a year in reduced taxes on foreign earnings by US multinationals is five times the $30 billion per year needed to eradicate world hunger.
These statistics shatter the lie, constantly recited to justify cuts in social programs and workers’ wages and benefits, that “there is no money” to pay for such things. They underscore the fact that no progress can be made in meeting elementary social needs without a frontal attack by the working class on the fortunes of the US and international oligarchs.

9 Nov 2018

VLIR-UOS Masters (ICP) and Training Scholarships 2019/2020 by Belgium Government for African/Developing Countries

Application Deadline: Application Deadlines depend on candidate’s chosen programme (See’How to Apply’ link below); deadlines generally between November 2018 – March 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries
  • Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Niger
  • Asia: Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Palestinian Territories, Vietnam
  • Latin America: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Peru
To be taken at (country): Belgium

Accepted Subject Areas: Only the following English taught courses at Belgian Flemish universities or university colleges are eligible for scholarships:
  • Master of Human Settlements – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Development Evaluation and Management – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Governance and Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Globalization and Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
Two-year programmes
  • Master of Science in Food Technology – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Science in Marine and Lacustrine Science and Management (Oceans and Lakes) – Deadline for applications: 28 February 2019
  • Master of Aquaculture (IMAQUA) – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2019
  • Master of Epidemiology – Deadline for applications: 15 February 2019
  • Master of Agro-and Environmental Nematology – Deadline for pre-academic admission: 3 January 2019. Please note you have to send a hard copy of your application and all requested documents to the programme coordinator before 15 January 2019!
  • Master of Rural Development – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2019
  • Master of Statistics – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Water Resources Engineering – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Sustainable Territorial Development – Deadline for applications: 1 February 2019
  • Master of Transportation Sciences and Road Safety in Low & Middle Income Countries – Deadline for applications: 1 March 2019
Training programmes (14-90 days)
  • International Module for Spatial Development Planning: deadline for applications is 23/11/2018 
About the Award: VLIR-UOS awards scholarships to students from developing countries to study for a master or training programme in Flanders, Belgium. VLIR-UOS funds and facilitates academic cooperation and exchange between higher education institutions in Flanders (Belgium) and those in developing countries, which aims at building capacity, knowledge and experience for a sustainable development.
The master programmes focus on specific problems of developing countries. These are designed to enable graduates to share and apply acquired knowledge in the home institution and country. In the shorter training programmes the focus is on transferring skills rather than knowledge, thus creating opportunities for cooperation and networking.

Selection Criteria: The following criteria will be taken into account for the selection of candidates for a scholarship:
  • Motivation. The candidate who is not able to convincingly motivate his application, is unlikely to be selected for a scholarship.
  • Professional experience: Preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate a higher possibility of implementing and/or transferring the newly gained knowledge upon return to the home country.
  • Gender. In case of two equally qualified candidates of different sexes, preference will be given to the female candidate.
  • Regional balance. The selection commission tries to ensure that 50% of a programme’s scholarships are granted to candidates from Sub-Saharan Africa, provided there is a sufficient number of qualifying candidates from this region.
  • Social background. In case of two equally qualified candidates, preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate that they belong to a disadvantaged group or area within their country or an ethnic or social minority group, especially when these candidates can provide proof of leadership potential.
  • Previously awarded scholarships: Preference will be given to candidates who have never received a scholarship to study in a developed country (bachelor or master).
Eligibility: You can only apply for a scholarship if you meet the following requisites.
  1. Fungibility with other VLIR-UOS funding: A scholarship within the VLIR-UOS scholarship programme is not compatible with financial support within an IUC- or TEAM-project. Candidates working in a university where such projects are being organized, should submit a declaration of the project leader stating that the department where the candidate is employed is not involved in the project.
  2. Age: The maximum age for an ICP candidate is 35 years for an initial masters and 40 years for an advanced masters. The maximum age for an ITP candidate is 45 years. The candidate cannot succeed this age on January 1 of the intake year.
  3. Nationality and Country of Residence: A candidate should be a national and resident of one of the 31 countries of the VLIR-UOS country list for scholarships (not necessarily the same country) at the time of application.
  4. Professional background and experience: VLIR-UOS gives priority to candidates who are employed in academic institutions, research institutes, governments, social economy or NGO’s, or aim a career in one of these sectors. However, also candidates employed in the profit sector (ICP and ITP) or newly graduated candidates without any work experience (ICP) can be eligible for the scholarship. The ITP candidate should have relevant professional experience and a support letter confirming (re)integration in a professional context where the acquired knowledge and skills will be immediately applicable.
  5. Former VLIR-UOS scholarship applications and previously awarded scholarships: A candidate can only submit one VLIR-UOS scholarship application per year, irrespectively of the scholarship type. As a consequence, a candidate can only be selected for one VLIR-UOS scholarship per year.
  6. The ICP candidate has never received a scholarship from the Belgian government to attend a master programme or equivalent or was never enrolled in a Flemish higher education institution to attend a master programme or equivalent before January 1 of the intake year
Number of Awardees: VLIR-UOS will award up to 180 scholarships to first-year master students and 70 scholarships to training participants.

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship covers ALL related expenses (full cost).

Duration of Scholarship: The master programmes will last for one or two academic years while the shorter training programmes will last 14 to 90 days.

How to Apply: 
  • To apply for a scholarship, you first need to apply for the training or Master programme.
  • To apply for a training or Master programme, visit the website of the training or Master programme of your interest. Follow the guidelines for application for the programme as mentioned on its website.
  • In the programme application, you can mention whether you wish to apply for a scholarship. In case you do,  the programme coordinator forwards your application to VLIR-UOS.
  • Applications submitted by the candidates to VLIR-UOS directly will not be considered!
Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Sponsors: The Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) responsible actor for the Belgian government

The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2019 Now Open

Application Deadline: 1st June 2019;

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: all Commonwealth countries and territories.

Theme: The Royal Commonwealth Society is pleased to announce the theme for The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2019 – A Connected Commonwealth.

Building on the 2018 theme of Towards a Common Future, this year’s topics ask young writers to explore the shared values, interests and experiences across the network, and how they can use this to make positive change. It calls on young people to consider the potential of the Commonwealth in strengthening the cast and varied links between citizens.

Senior Category: Born between 2 June 2000 and 1 June 2005 (14-18 years of age)
  1. ‘You are the most optimistic, connected generation the world has ever known.’ HRH The Duke of Sussex. How can you use Commonwealth connections for positive change?
  2. Connected by the oceans; can we work together to protect the environment?
  3. ‘We are all now connected by the Internet’ – Stephen Hawking. What does the future hold for humankind?
  4. Family, Community, Nation, Commonwealth. What are the opportunities for shared, sustainable growth?
Junior Category: Born on or after 2 June 2005 (under 14 years of age)
  1. My cultural connections.
  2. An overseas visitor is coming to your town for the first time.  How would you connect with them?
  3. A place I feel connected to.
  4. The Commonwealth connects people across borders – what can we learn from our neighbours?
Judges described entries to the competition in 2018 as ‘‘fantastically imaginative’, ‘hopeful’, ‘quite exceptional’ and ‘passionate’. We expect a similarly high calibre of writing for 2019.

About The Award: For 2019, we want to hear from all young people, regardless of schooling, education or region.  All stories and voices are important.
The competition is open to all citizens and residents of the Commonwealth aged 18 and under and runs from Monday 5 November until 1 June 2019. All entrants receive a Certificate of Participation and one Winner and Runner-up from the Senior and Junior categories will win a trip to London for a week of educational and cultural events.

Offered Since: 1883

Eligibility: Entries will be disqualified if they fail to meet any of the following requirements:
  1. The competition is open to nationals or residents of all Commonwealth countries and territoriesas well as residents of the Maldives and Zimbabwe. Residents of non-Commonwealth countries whose entries are submitted through their local RCS branch are also eligible.
  2. Entrants must select a Senior or Junior topic depending on their age on 1st June 2019. Senior entrants must be born between 2nd June 2000 and 1st June 2005 (14-18) and Junior entrants must be born after 2 June 2005 (under 14 years of age).
  3. The maximum word counts are 1,500 words for Senior entries and 750 words for Junior entries. These word limits apply to all topics and all formats (essay, poem, letter, etc). Exceeding the word count will result in automatic disqualification.
  4. Entries must be written in English.
  5. Only one entry per participant is allowed. Once an essay is submitted, students/teachers will nothave the opportunity to revise it. Please carefully check and improve your writing before submitting the final copy, and also ensure that all supplementary information is filled in correctly (name, contact details, topic number, etc.)
  6. Plagiarism is not accepted in the competition. Every year a number of students are disqualified because they are suspected of plagiarism. Please see our guide to plagiarism before submitting.
  7. Final documents should not include the entrants personal details including name, age, school or country. This information should be inputted upon entry.
  8. The final copy submitted for the competition must be the entrant’s own work, and cannot be excessively corrected or improved by another person. This does not rule out input or assistance from others but does exclude group entries.
  9. By entering the competition, you agree that your personal details including full name, gender, email, school and essay may be sent to your local RCS branch and any Essay Competition partners.
  10. Essays can only be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx) or in PDF format (.pdf). The online platform does not accept Google Docs (.gdoc), Pages documents (.pages) or other word processor formats. Note: if we are unable to find or open your essay file (either through an incorrect format or upload error), your entry may not be counted in the competition.
  11. All online entries must be submitted before midnight (GMT) on 1st June 2019; any offline entries must arrive at RCS London by 1st May 2019
  12. All entrants retain the copyright rights that they have for the pieces they submit, but by entering The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition, each contestant consents to the use of his/her name, and/or pieces or parts thereof in any advertisements, educational materials, corpus research or media and publicity carried out or produced by the Royal Commonwealth Society and its local branches without further notice or compensation. The Royal Commonwealth Society can publish or decline to publish; use or decline to use, any submitted pieces at the Royal Commonwealth Society’s sole discretion.
  13. The RCS suggests that entrants retain a copy of their original work as regretfully we are unable to return or provide copies of submissions.
  14. The RCS retains the right to change the prize of the competition if circumstances make this necessary.
  15. The RCS will only be able to publish on our website and in our literature content that is appropriate for a wide and diverse audience, in line with our own policies. Entrants are encouraged to consider this in relation to their use of language when entering the competition.
Value of Award: Prizes have traditionally been awarded only to the first prize winners in the Senior and Junior categories and also vary year by year. All entrants receive a Certificate of Participation and one Winner and Runner-up from the Senior and Junior categories will win a trip to London for a week-long series of educational and cultural events.

How to Enter: The Royal Commonwealth Society is building a new online platform that will be much easier to use and accessible on all devices, but it’s not quite ready yet. We encourage young people to begin writing their pieces and will open the new platform for submissions in early 2019. Please note: we do not accept essays sent by email.
Please visit the ‘Terms and Conditions’ page and Competition Webpage before submitting your entry.

Visit Competition Webpage for details

Provider: The Royal Commonwealth Society

Open Society Fellowship 2019 for International Scholars

Application Deadline: 4th February 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: The Open Society Fellowship was founded in 2008 to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges. The fellowship funds work that will enrich public understanding of those challenges and stimulate far-reaching and probing conversations within the Open Society Foundations and in the world. The fellowship funds work that will enrich public understanding of those challenges and stimulate far-reaching and probing conversations within the Open Society Foundations and in the world.
For the current application round, applicants for the Open Society Fellowship are invited to address the following proposition:
New and radical forms of ownership, governance, entrepreneurship, and financialization are needed to fight pervasive economic inequality.
This proposition is intended as a provocation—to stimulate productive controversy and debate—and does not necessarily represent the views of the Open Society Foundations. Applicants are invited to dispute, substantiate, or otherwise engage with the proposition in their submissions. Though the proposition deals with economic issues, those without an economics or business background are welcome to apply, provided they have a relevant project in mind.

Offered Since: 2008

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:
  • Ideal fellows are specialists who can see beyond the parochialisms of their field and possess the tenacity to complete a project of exceptional merit.
  • Proposals will be accepted from anywhere in the world, although demonstrable proficiency in spoken and written English is required.
  • Applicants should possess and demonstrate a deep understanding of the major themes embedded within the statement for which they wish to apply and be willing to serve in a cohort of fellows with diverse occupational, geographic, and ideological profiles.
  • Successful applicants should be eager to exploit the many resources offered by the Open Society Foundations and be prepared to engage constructively with our global network.
Selection: The fellowship seeks “idea entrepreneurs” from across the world who are ready to challenge conventional wisdom.
Letters of inquiry should address the following questions:
  • What is the central argument of your proposed project as it relates to the statement?
  • How does your project advance or challenge current thinking?
  • Who is/are the intended audience/s?
  • What are the potential work products?
Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 
  • One year fellows will receive a stipend of $80,000 or $100,000, depending on work experience, seniority, and current income. Stipends will be prorated for shorter term fellows. The stipend does not necessarily equal the applicant’s current salary. In certain cases, fellows will receive additional financial support to enable them to meet the residency expectation.
  • Open Society fellows produce work outputs of their own choosing, such as a book, journalistic or academic articles, art projects, a series of convenings, etc. In addition, fellowship cohorts may develop a joint work product of some sort. Fellowship staff will assist cohorts in brainstorming possible outputs if needed.
  • In addition to the stipend, fellows will receive a project budget. That budget may include expenses such as travel (including airfare and hotel), visa costs, part-time research assistance, conference fees and health insurance.
Duration of Fellowship: Fellowships are granted for one year, six months, and, in a small number of cases, for three months.

How to Apply: Applicants are asked to submit a letter of inquiry online through our grants portal by February 4, 2019. Any questions may be directed to osfellows@opensocietyfoundations.org. Complete guidelines are available in the Download Files section on this page.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Open Society Fellowship

Important Notes: 
  • The fellowship does not fund enrollment for degree or nondegree study at academic institutions, including dissertation research.
  • This is a fellowship for individuals only; proposals from organizations or individuals acting on behalf of organizations will not be accepted.

Reuters Journalism Training Programme 2019 for Early-career & Professional Journalists in Europe, Middle East and Africa

Application Deadline: 30th November 2018 at midday (UK time).

Eligible Countries: Countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

To be taken at (country): Reuters Offices in London, UK; and EMEA countries

About the Award: The Reuters Journalism Programme is an opportunity for recent graduates, early career reporters, or professionals with 2-3 years’ experience who are looking to switch careers into journalism. The programme in 2019 will consist of 9 months of formal and on-the-job journalism training, initially for one month in London, followed by one of our other main reporting newsrooms or bureaus across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Type: Internship, Training

Eligibility:
  • Clear commitment to a career in journalism
  • Drive to build sources, break news and deliver deeply reported stories
  • Strong interest in issues that affect companies, markets and economies
  • Ability to generate original, relevant story ideas
  • Ambition to deliver journalism with real impact
  • Fluency in written English
  • Fluency in a second language beneficial but not compulsory
  • An international outlook
Other desired skills (not prerequisites)
  • Knowledge or expertise in a relevant field such as banking, financial analysis, accounting, law or computer science
  • Up to 3 years of professional journalism experience
  • Proven ability to generate exclusive and agenda-setting stories
  • Experience in multi-media story-telling
  • Expertise in data analysis or data-driven journalism
  • Understanding of how to use social media to report and find sources
Visa Requirements
You must have the legal right to work in either Europe, Middle East or Africa to be considered for this programme

Number of Awards:

Value of Award: The Reuters Journalism Programme offers an opportunity to fast-track your journalism career and develop your skills across a variety of subjects and media. Successful applicants will predominantly report in text, but visual reporting skills and story-telling ideas will be welcome.

Key elements
  • Competitive pay
  • Placements in a bureau in EMEA
  • Fast-paced reporting on top news stories of the day
  • Opportunity to develop journalism skills
  • Participants who excel may be considered for other opportunities
Duration of Programme: 
  • Nine-month scheme including intensive training and reporting assignments
  • Placement in the London newsroom or a major bureau in EMEA
  • Application due by Friday 30th November 2018
  • Programme begins September 2019
How to Apply: 
  • Please ensure that your CV is no more than two pages long and written in English.
  • All applications must be supported by a Cover Letter
Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Erasmus Mundus MaMaSELF Joint Masters Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 12th February 2019.

To be taken at (Universities): 
  • University of Rennes 1-UR1, France
  • University of Torino-TO, Italy
  • Technical University of Munich-TUM, Germany
  • Ludwig Maximiillan University of Munich-LMU, Germany
  • University of Montpellier-UM, France
About the Award: MaMaSELF is a 2 year ERASMUS MUNDUS Master Course in Materials Science Exploring Large Scale Facilities (MAMASELF). It deals with material characterization using neutron and synchrotron radiation with strong synergies between universities, industrial partners and research centres. In an international environment, it offers excellent academic and industrial opportunities to Master Students.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Students must have
  • A Bachelor (180 ECTS)  in Materials Science or related disciplines : Chemistry, Physics, Geo-science,…
  • Proof of good English competencies, e.g.  TOEFL  CBT 230 and PBT  550 IBT 80 / IELTS 6.5 or equivalent, except for applicants native from English speaking countries and for students having been educated in English at secondary or/and university. Students who intend to have a mobility at TUM  must have following level for admission at TUM : TOEFL IBT 88, CBT 234/ PBT 605
  • Students coming from main background : civil engineering, medicine, pharmacy, architecture, accounting, law will not be accepted unless they have a minimum background in Chemistry or Physics (at Bachelor level).
Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Erasmus Mundus scholarship covers tuition fees and allows to cover all expenses that non eu students normally face during their studies.

Duration of Scholarship: 2 years

How to Apply: 
  • Bachelor degree (with certified English translation)
  • Transcripts (with translation)
  • English competencies certificate
  • Reference letters
  • Passport
Create your account and start your application

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Fracking in the UK

Graham Peebles

Burning fossil fuels is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), and, greenhouse gas emissions (water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O)) are the principle cause of man-made climate change. Given this fact, governments throughout the world should be moving away from fossil fuels and investing in, and designing policies that encourage development of, renewable sources of energy. But the British Conservative government, despite public opinion to the contrary, has all but banned the construction of onshore wind turbines and is encouraging fracking in England. The Tories are the only UK political party to offer support for this regressive form of energy production, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens having all promised fracking bans should they gain political office at the next general election.
Hydraulic fracking is the process of releasing gas and oil from shale rock: huge quantities of water, proppant (usually sand) and chemicals are injected at high-pressure into hydrocarbon-bearing rocks, rocks that can be up to a mile down and were once thought to be impermeable. This process of fracturing (or cracking) forces the rocks to crack open, and gas held inside is released and allowed to flow to the surface.
Shale gas is a fossil fuel, and when combusted produces GGE, albeit at around 50% less than coal or oil, but GGE nevertheless. The leading fracking company in Britain is the energy firm Cuadrilla. An organization that according to its website, aims “to be a model company for exploring and developing shale gas in the UK,” they state that they are “acutely aware of the responsibilities this brings, particularly with regard to safety, environmental protection and working with local communities.” Really?
After protests by the local community and various court cases (Lancashire County Council had refused drilling rights, but the Secretary of State ignored community voices and approved the company’s request on appeal), Cuadrilla recently commenced fracking at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire. However, as in 2011 when the company was forced to abandon drilling, work was suspended for two days out of four because of earthquakes. Tremors measured 0.5 on the Richter scale, which breached the seismic threshold established following the 2011 earth tremors. Instead of abandoning the project as the local community and environmental groups are demanding, the firm’s chief executive, Francis Egan, wants the Government to raise the threshold.
Another Regressive Step
America is home to hydraulic fracturing, where it’s been taking place for decades. Greenpeace state that as of 2012 the “fracking industry [in USA] has drilled around 1.2 million wells and is slated to add at least 35,000 new wells every year.” Fracking has led to US oil production increasing faster than anytime in its history, resulting in lower domestic gas prices. The US Energy Information Administration record that around two thirds of gas is now produced by fracking and almost half the countries crude oil.
Shale gas is spoken of as a positive alternative to coal, but it’s just another filthy fossil fuel that is adding to GGE, which in turn are driving climate change. Fracking has a substantive impact on the natural environment and the health of those living within the surrounding area. Earthquakes, air pollution, soil pollution, carcinogenic chemical leakage and contaminated groundwater are the primary risks.
An enormous amount of water, which needs to be transported to the site incurring significant environmental costs, is required in the fracking process. The amount of water used varies per well: between 1.5 and 10 million gallons is required every time a well is fractured. Greenpeace relate that, “in 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water were used to fracture just 35,000 wells in the United States.” The water is mixed with various chemicals to make fracking fluid, a toxic cocktail that can be further contaminated by “heavy metals and radioactive elements that exist naturally in the shale.” A significant portion of the frack fluid returns to the surface, “where it can spill or be dumped into rivers and streams…fracking fluids and waste have made their way into our drinking water and aquifers. Groundwater can be contaminated through fracking fluid and methane leakage and the energy companies have “no idea what to do with the massive amount of contaminated water it’s creating,”
In addition to water and soil pollution, fracking adds to existing levels of air pollution as methane gas is released into the atmosphere through leaks and venting, a study conducted by Cornell University found that “over a wells lifetime, 3.6 to 7.9 percent of methane gas escapes” in this way. Unlike CO2, which sits in the atmosphere for centuries or millennia, methane only lasts for decades, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts that it warms the planet by 86 times as much as CO2 before then degrading to become CO2.
Many countries recognize the retrogressive nature of fracking and have rejected it; France, Cantabria in Spain, Germany and Bulgaria have banned it, England is the only country in the UK where it is allowed. More than 100 fracking licenses have been awarded by the government, but in order to start fracking they need permission from the local council. Fracking is universally unpopular amongst the communities where sites are located or proposed; on 13th October the Gasdown-Frackdown action saw thousands of people from six continents take to the streets demanding an end to fracking and calling for long-term investment in renewable sources of energy. Fracking is not an environmentally sane way to meet the energy needs of a country, it is part of the problem not the solution and it should be rejected totally. What is required is a global energy strategy rooted in environmental sustainability. As Friends of the Earth rightly say, “a 21st Century energy revolution based on efficiency and renewables, not more fossil fuels that will add to climate change.”